Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c12.s3.t6.3

c12.s3.t6.3

The contingent of decorative designs including flowers, animals, human beings and divine figures was traditional and borrowed from the repertoire that we find in the Vedic, Buddhist and Jaina Āgamic literature. In the description of lotus railing (padmavara vedikā) as given in the Rāyapasenīya Sutta, we find conventionalised lists of such decorative motifs. There seems to be no doubt that these motifs of ornamental decoration were being used in wooden construction for many centuries from where the stone carvers borrowed them with complete facility. The unique charm of such a railing became widely popular and accepted in such art centres as Mathura and Sarnath. The railing pillars of the earlier Jaina Stūpa at Kaṅkālī Ṭilā show as if the ground balustrade of Sanchi Stūpa II was transferred with the variety of its decorative motifs and the simple natural style of carving. The few Śuṅga pillars at Sarnath are also as if replicas of the Sanchi balustrade. The age of these reliefs on the balusrade of Stūpa II may rightly be fixed on the basis of their style and palæography of inscriptions in the last quarter of the 2nd century B. C.